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Last updated: 9/4/07

Syllabus for Web.Edu
Fall 2007

What is a Syllabus?
The Syllabus for a course is the basic contract between you and the University. It should describe what you can expect to learn, what the assignments and other graded work are, and how the course grade will be determined. It should also describe the basic rules governing the course. While there will likely be changes to the syllabus during the term, you should read it carefully and keep it available for reference during the term. This is especially the case for online students.

The major topics are:

1. (Week 1) Overview, Register for computer conference, Syllabus
2. (Weeks 2 though 4) Using the Computer Conference, Characteristics of Online Courses
3. (Weeks 5 through 7) Alternate Systems
4. (Week 8) How the Internet Works, and Getting Help
5. (Week 9) Online Citizenship
6. (Weeks 10 - 13) Freedom and Responsibility
7. (Week 14) Review
8. (Week 15) Final Exam

Instructor: David R. Bowen

Office Hours: Saturdays 9:00 to 9:35 PM in 126 Cohn on class days
But call or email anytime!

Office Location: 2311 A/AB Building
(DIS offices, 5700 Cass at the northeast corner of Palmer and Cass)
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI 48202

Work Phone (DIS office): 313-577-1498
DIS FAX: 313-577-8585
Home Phone: 248-549-8518
At Ford: 313-390-2155
Cell phone: (248) 514-9458
E-mail: d.r.bowen@wayne.edu
AIM screen name: WSU web guy

Textbook (now available at campus Barnes and Noble bookstore, or can be bought or ordered through other sources of your choice):
How to Be a Successful Online Student, by Sara Dulaney Gilbert, pub 2001 by McGraw-Hill.
ISBN 0-07-136512-5

Course Web Site
The course web site is at http://www.is.wayne.edu/drbowen/WebEduF07. This is on the public Internet, accessible with any web browser, such as Netscape Communicator, Internet Explorer or AOL. If you try to access it from work, and your employer has an Internet firewall, you will need to get a firewall account through your employer. The course web site will be updated continuously throughout the semester. All major course materials, aside from the textbook, will be available through the course web site.

For the online section, the course web site will be the central starting point for most course work. Even for face-to-face students, the course web site is the place to go if you loose a handout.

Grading
All assignments are due on the date shown in the assignment schedule. I will not penalize late assignments. However, turning everything in at the end of the semester will result in a grade of I, with a Change of Grade later. Also, I am here giving you advance permission to turn in or to redo course work after it is due, in some cases up to one calendar year after the end of the course. For this course, the end of the year comes at the end of the Fall 2008 semester, allowing six weeks for me to grade the work and turn in the University Change of Grade form in time to meet the deadline. The University also takes time to process the change, but as long as the Change of Grade form is in by the end of the Fall 2008 semester, the grade will be recorded eventually. For the work labeled "Must be made up with additional assignment," it is your responsibility to devise the additional assignment, and to get my approval before you start the assignment.

Grades are given on the basis of performance on the assignments, and are not meant to indicate intelligence or potential, apart from performance. The grading scale will be

The "-" range for a grade of A through E is the lower three points, and gets averaged at the middle. For example, A- is 90 to 92 and gets averaged as 91. The "+" for a grade is the top three points, and gets averaged at the middle. For example, B+ is 87 to 89 and gets averaged as 88. A grade of 100 is an A+. Note that the highest course grade recognized by the University is A. (You can get an A+ for an assignment, but not for the course.)

Missing work gets averaged in as a zero. This includes work containing plagiarism; see the section on plagiarism.

Assignments:

Absence

All course materials will be available on the course web site. If you miss a class, you are expected to download the materials from the web site, read them, and ask any questions during office hours or by phone or email, before the next class.

To make up a class session:

• Get the class notes from the web site
• Formats will be either (your choice) Microsoft PowerPoint (PPT) or Adobe Acrobat Reader (PDF). PDF files may not be available until a day or two after the class.
• Write a two-hundred word (strict limit) summary of the class, in your own words. Summarize course content only; do NOT include reminders about assignments, exams, rules, etc. You will still be responsible for the reminders and rules, but not responsible for including them in your summary. Use the same page format as for the Essays.
• Email this summary to the Instructor.

Grade Appeals

The ISP has a clear policy in the event that a student should disagree with the Instructor's grade. The policy involves first arranging to talk informally, with the Instructor about the grade to see if the dispute can be resolved informally. In the event that it cannot the student must follow the approved policy of grade appeal to the Divisional Coordinator (this course is within the Science and Technology Division, and I am the Coordinator this semester), then to the Department Chair, who will refer the matter to the ISP Academic Standing Committee. Before taking this step please read the policy and procedure obtainable from the Department Chair or on the DIS web page (http://www.is.wayne.edu, then “Policies” then “Grade Appeal Process”). Students should also consult the WSU bulletin for the relevant section of the policy referring to the Ombudsperson. Appeals to the Ombudsperson are a separate channel of grade appeals.

Educational Accessibility

If you feel that you may need an accommodation based on the impact of a disability, please feel free to contact me privately to discuss your specific needs. Additionally, the Office of Educational Accessibility Services (EAS) coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. The Office is located in the Student Center Building, Room 583, phone: 313-577-1851 (Voice)/577-3365(TTY).

Assessment by the 4th Week

For this course, the instructor is required to provide the University with a formal assessment of your performance by the end of the fourth week. The assessment includes your performance on quizzes, the amount of homework you turn in, timely purchase of class materials and attendance.

Make-up Examinations

Students must request, by telephone, email or in writing, a make-up exam or quiz within 24 hours of examination or quiz. The instructor and the student must negotiate a time and place for the make-up examination or quiz

Late Assignments:
With some exceptions, I will accept late assignments with no reduction in credit. You can rework Essays and similar assignments (with the exception of  failure for plagiarism) during the semester, for a better grade. You can also turn in late and reworked assignments after the course is over, for a Change of Grade, with the exceptions noted above. You can turn work in up to six weeks before the end of the Fall 2008 semester, at the end of December 2008. However, if you turn in a big bunch of this work at the end, I will assume that it was a rush job and grade it closely. Instead, I expect to see this late work turned in as you complete it.

Except for the Final Exam on December 15, all work to count in the regular course grade must be in by the beginning of class the week before, on December 8. Work turned in after this time will count towards a Change of Grade, after the course is over.

Dropping Classes:
Do not just stop attending this or any other WSU class. You will still owe tuition and will get a grade, such as F or W, that you do not want on your record. Always use the Drop screen on Pipeline to drop a class. The W grades are WP (Passing at the time the withdrawal was filled out), WF (failing at the time the withdrawal was filled out) or WN (not enough work turned in to determine pass/fail status). If you have severe problems during the semester, ask the Instructor for an Incomplete (I) that you can make up afterwards, or consider a Medical Withdrawal from all classes.

Grading for Course withdrawals:
Students who stop class participation, and do not officially withdraw from the course before the drop deadline, but do not request an I, and who have not completed approximately 50% of the course work may be given an F or a WF. In order to request an I, you must set a completion date in consultation with the Instructor, and an agreed makeup plan for all work including missed class time.

Online Citizenship:
Without the facial expressions and body language that provide cues during face-to-face conversation, online communication can be subject to misinterpretation and thereby lead to anger. This has led to "flame wars" in which language escalates out of control, any real interchange stops, and all sides are convinced that they are the victims. At the same time, in-depth dialogue can occur, since it is possible to go back and reread messages, and to correct what you said earlier if it is not quite what you meant, and also to explore differences in more detail and therefore perhaps to come to an understanding with someone else that you might have "written off" in person. Finally, replies to messages often dribble in over a week or two after the message was posted. This includes my replies as well. The results are (a) that others may have forgotten what the original message was when you reply, and (b) others may reply to questions about assignments or content before I do.

Online citizenship means to minimize the risks and to maximize the potential for online dialogue and understanding. Here are some guidelines:

• Since others may have forgotten then original message that you are replying to, always provide a context for your replies. This is done most easily by using the "Reply" button on the message you are replying to, to link to that message. Also, change the message topic to reflect your new substantive contribution.
• If you can reply to someone else's question about assignments or content before I do, great! If I do not have a problem with what you said, I will often just reply with "good," or even not respond at all. In many cases you will also have specialized knowledge due to your work or other experiences. The only place where I feel that I must respond as the instructor is if there are conflicting responses.
• It is hard if not impossible to be certain that you are not misinterpreting someone else's words. Equally, it is hard to ensure that your words are so clear that no one else can misread them. A very good habit to get into, to avoid flame wars, in dealing with differences of opinion, is to speak only about yourself and not about the other person. For example, "I feel that John is wrong here," instead of, "John is wrong here," or, "That is not what I got out of that section of the textbook," instead of, "That is not what the author is saying."
• If you feel that you are being attacked in someone else's message, be slow to take offense. Check to make sure that you understood what was intended.
• In order to explore agreements and disagreements, a specific example, even a made-up one, can make the case very specific and therefore easier to discuss. But it may take more than one specific example.
• The style for online discussion is to to keep each message short, to the point, and having one or perhaps two main ideas. There is a first assigned message to introduce yourself to the class, but after that, keep messages that are not course-related in an appropriate main topic, so that people in a hurry do not have to read them.
• If you reply to a message, the conferencing system proposes a topic that is the topic of the original message. You can and should change this, because your message has something different in it (else why are you posting it).

Course Management Systems (CMS) and Moodle
A Course Management System (CMS) is a computer system for putting course information and interactions on the Internet (World Wide Web). Wayne State University uses Blackboard as its standard CMS. What a CMS does can roughly be divided into two groups: (1) static web pages, meaning pages that are the same every time they are viewed, such as a course syllabus, and (2) interactivity, where the student enters information, such as online discussions, online quizzes and exams, and online course evaluations. In this course, we will use a public web site for static web pages. For most interactivity we will use an alternate CMS called Moodle. For online discussions, we will start out in Moodle, which is similar to the Blackboard online discussion, but use two additional systems during the semester: (1) WebBoard (an online discussion forum that works differently than Moodle, and (2) a ListServ, which works through your email.

Moodle Registration and Email Test
Moodle Registration and Email Test are all done by going to the course web site, following the link with that name, and following the directions. Here are brief descriptions:

1. Moodle Registration. Here you establish an account on the course computer system. For the user (you), a computer account consists of a User Name and a Password. The User Name is public, and is the name your are known by on that system. The Password is private, and is how you show that it is really you when you log in. On most of the systems for online courses, you choose your own User Name and Password, instead of having them assigned to you. Things are this way on the computer conferencing system; you make up your own User Name and Password. These can be the same as ones that you use on other systems, or different; the choice is entirely up to you. After your initial login, you will be asked to repeat the information, and supply an email address. On the non-required information, at the bottom of the online registration form, be sure to give yourself a signature. The can, for example, consist of your name and a favorite phrase or saying. These two steps are all that is involved in this assignment; after you set up your account, I will add you to the course computer conference.
2. Email Test. This consists of your sending variety of email messages with difference addressing, as follows:
   1. Email directly to me (d.r.bowen@wayne.edu)
   2. Email to someone else with a CC to me
   3. Reply to an email message that someone else sends you, with a CC to me
   4. Copying and pasting specified text from the course web site into an email message to me.
   5. Attaching a file to an email message and sending it to me.